The Best and Worst of Fighting Games

I was first introduced to fighting games while on the M.S. Chi Chee-maun (the fairy that crosses from Tobemory to South Bay Mouth. It was here that I played the first Virtua Fighter and fell in love with kicking the crap out of people… virtually. I then attempted to get my hands on any one that I could. After many years, I have finally decided to list off my favourite characters from these games, ad the worst, as there are some that are amazing and some that really piss me off. So here we go. I’ve separated the favourites into Male and Female, not for sexist reasons, but because I really have too many to make a top ten list…

MALE TOP TEN

10. Jack (Power Stone)

Jack is an original character from the game Power Stone. He unlike many other characters uses weapons, twin knives that make for some of my favourite special moves. In the game, he is a thief/murderer who likes to steal shiny things. When he does get his hands on them (Power Stones) he becomes the Mad Clown and uses sword dance-like moves to slash his enemies into bits. In the end of the game he uses the stones to wish for a doppelganger so that while it is in jail, he can continue to kill and steal without being suspected. He is obviously based on Jack the Ripper.

9. Bridget (Guilty Gear XX)

So you would think with a name like Bridget and a body like that he would be a girl right? That’s what I thought… boy was I wrong. Born a twin in a village where twins are considered an ill omen, Bridget was raised to be a girl to save the house hold from evil. Later on he would become a bounty hunter to prove his masculinity and worth, but was tricked by the antagonist I-NO to take out his opponents. Using a giant yo-yo like a meteor hammer (one of my favourite weapons) and her giant mechanical teddy bear named Roger, Bridget is a hard to beat opponent. Just think of her as a reverse Samus-Arn.

8. Ryu (Street Fighter)

This is a character whose back story I know relativity little about. From what I gather he joined the Street Fighter Tournament to beat Saget in the first edition of the game, but I never played it. However Street Fighter 2 I actually got to play on the arcade console. He doesn’t fight for the money, fame or title, he fights to beat those that could be better than himself. He has a close friendship and rivalry with Ken Masters who uses similar moves (but with fiery after effects). I enjoy his moves such as the legendary hadoken, swift uppercuts and a quadruple flying spin kick that makes any combo complete. More over, he is simple to use but requires a little bit of time to master completely.

7. Darth Vader (Masters of Teras Kasi)

Darth Vader is one of my favourite characters in anything, anytime, anywhere. His appearance in Soul Calibur 4 was crap. He was slow and incredibly hard to use. In Masters of Teras Kasi for the PS1, EVERYONE is slow and hard to use, so its alright. Even though the game was crap it had one thing that I really found amazing. DARTH VADER USES LIGHTNING!!! I can’t find a screenshot of it, so I’ll have to do it myself (bought a copy of the game for $40) however this it has the right idea. Lightning is force generated, NOT body generated and therefore mechanical limbs don’t really matter in generating it. Also if Vader is using the force to fight (as does all Jedi), Vader should not be slow. Fuck you Lucas! Am I the only person who has a clear understanding of what the force is?

6. Li Long (Soul Edge/Blade)

Li Long is an original character from Soul Edge (Soul Blade on home port) who for some reason was deemed not important enough to continue into the much more popular and successful Soul Calibur. Li Long was an assassin sent by the Emperor to kill a pirate lord and bring back the sword to the Emperor. He fails and is critically injured but saved by an innkeepers daughter rendered mute by past events. They start a romance but a swordsman at the inn starts a fight one day and she is apparently killed. Thinking it was the swordsman Mitsirugi, Li Long starts off on a quest of vengeance killing any swordsman along the way and taking their weapons and making them serviceable for his own style. His travels took him to Spain where he found Cervantes De Leon (current wielder of the Soul Edge). He fights gallantly but falls in battle (though it is revealed that he is not killed). Li Long was in my opinion one of the best characters of the series having an amazing back story and a great fighting style. Unlike his replacement Maxi (Soul Calibur), Maxi requires some skill to use AND he ca use BOTH of his Nunchaku (or in England a three section staff due to ban on Nunchaku) in combat. He was popular enough to make a guest appearance in Soul Calibur 3, but the game producers didn’t catch on that he was one of their best designs and have not included him since… dicks!

5. Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

Lord Raiden (now Rayden) is a thunder god and immortal in the Mortal Kombat universe. In the first game he is invited by Shang Tsung (the boss) to compete in the tenth and final tournament to claim our realm. He appears in human form but retains his ability to teleport, shoot lightning and fly giving him a pretty good edge. In later games he gives up his status as an elder god and becomes mortal due to the merging of realms and saves Lu kang’s soul to help him defeat Shao khan after he had taken all the souls of our realm as his own. Depending on the game, Raiden fights with Nan Chuan and Jujitsu styles and uses a war hammer or a staff. After committing Hara-Kiri in an attempt to destroy Onaga the dragon king, his essence is reformed in Earth realm, but much darker. Pissed at how humans treat their realm and at their amazing stupidity, he decides to take matters into his own hands. Now here is where Raiden made the best move in all of Mortal Kombat. Liu Kang had previously died in a previous game, so he took the body to a necromancer temple ad brought him back as a zombie!!! I did not like Liu Kang, however making him a zombie was freaking AWESOME! So Raiden gets the number four slot over better characters for making me like a character I previously had no liking to whatsoever!

4. Link (Smash Bro’s)

Again not really a typical fighting game, it still counts in my books so there. Link is my favourite Nintendo character ever. I beat The Legend of Zelda when I was about 3 years old, and never looked back. When Super Smash Bro’s hit the N64 I was at my friends house playing it every chance I got. There really is no back story to the game, but Link is a master of the sword (get the pun…Master Sword???) and many of the items in his possession including: bombs, the boomerang, (later on the light arrow) and hookshot (great for getting those cheap bastards with the hammer). Included in his move list is the downstab and upthrust technique first seen in The Adventures of Link plus the white tunic (my personal battle wear) as an optional colour derived from the Blue Ruppie Ring first seen in the original game. On a side note, Link WAS included in Soul Calibur 2, however he had no real combo moves and very slow allowing his ass to get kicked very easily. Same problem as Darth Vader in Soul Calibur 4. Regardless… GO LINK!!!

3.Mitsurugi (Soul Edge/Blade)

Have you noticed a trend in my favourite characters yet? It can’t be helped. The Soul Series was amazing beyond imagine right down to the first game Soul Edge/Blade. Mitsurugi believes in one thing and one thing only, his own strength. The fourth son of a farmer in Japan during the “warring ages” when the feudal lords fought to attain the title of Shogun, Mitsurugi tired of seeing the lad ravaged decided to become a samurai. He gained many commendations and achieved the rank of officer in the Japanese army and his reputation flared all across the land. His only real ambition however was to seek a worthy opponent and so after the war he became a mercenary in every war that sprang up. Then he heard of a new weapon called the rifle, which was changing the very way wars were being fought and had wiped out an entire regiment with ease. Realizing that this weapon would lose him his lively hood, he decided to find the powerful sword Soul Edge to assist him against this evil weapon. Finding no trace of the sword he ended up fighting a rifleman to prove that he did not need the Soul Edge but was shot in the right shoulder and defeated in front of his lord. In Soul Calibur he stalks Nightmare the Azure Knight wielding the very sword he was looking for but lost his trail. In the end of this game he faces his rifleman opponent again but this time manages to kill him. My favourite Mitsurugi moment was in Soul Calibur 4 when after defeating the creator of Soul Edge and Soul Calibur he is offered the power of both swords and his (that of a god) but Mitsurugi just turns away claiming that his own power was more than enough. Tough, bad ass and a great fighting style that flows together and FEELS like that of a samurai, Mitsurugi is one of the best characters of all time.

2. Kilik (Soul Calibur)

Kilik is an orphan being raised at the Ling Shang Su temple in the mountains of China. At the age of 19 he was chosen to receive the Kali Yuga (the rod he weilds) while Xianglian (another temple student) was to recieve the Dvapara-Yuga (a mirror) instead. The third treasure turns out to be the Soul Calibur belonging to Xianglian’s secret sister Xianghua. After the events of Soul Edge the Evil Seed was released by Soul Edge, some of it ending up at the Ling temple. Kilik and all the rest of the monks went mad under its influence and started killing each other minus Xianglian who was protected by the Dvapara-Yuga. Realizing its power she decided that she loved Kilik more than her own sanity and wrapped the mirror around Kilik thus losing her own saity while Kilik regained his. When he came to the only survivor Xiaglian attempted to kill him, so he had to kill her in self defense. The Edge Master (teacher and adviser of the of the temple) found him unconscious, and took it upon himself to train him. He can never take the mirror off his body or the Evil Seed still within his body would regain control and madness would follow. With his training complete he has but one final test. Destroy the Soul Edge and purify the Kali-yuga. Kilik does not fight, he daces around the stage with his rod smashing his opponents into the stage with the look of ease.

1. Shun-Di (Virtua Fighter 2)

Shun-Di is a Chinese herbal doctor in China who teaches Drunken Kung-Fu at a small training hall. while drinking with his friends he hears them speak of the World Fighting tournament and decides that he too will fight. I think he may have ran out of money for wine, but whatever the reason, I’m glad he did. Like Kilik, Shun-Di makes all his moves look effortless and you can make him lay on his side and drink casually if you get the chance. He also uses several moves from Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master which are fun to call out while kicking your opponents ass. The more he drinks the more moves become available making drinking a very important part of his fighting style doing so every chance you get, even if its not needed. His combo’s are easy and hard to pull off respectively being an “Expert” character, involving a bit of patience and practice to learn. Even I can’t use him to his fullest, but I’ll keep training because out of all the characters mentioned above, he is the most FUN to use, earning him the number one spot on this list.